caption

Zoom meetings have become the default way many people communicate during the coronavirus pandemic.

source

REUTERS/Janis Laizans

Seeing a large face on a video call can make your brain think the person is close and trigger a “fight or flight” response, according to a researcher who studies how people interact with computers.

People can control their personal space in physical meetings, but in virtual ones that’s decided by how close you sit and how big someone’s face appears, Stanford researcher Jeremy Bailenson wrote in an op-ed for .

During a , people actually flinched when exposed to big virtual faces, offering one explanation for why Zoom calls can be so exhausting, Bailenson wrote.

As video calls become the norm due to coronavirus lockdowns, we’re starting to see the they change how we communicate.

.

If that large face in the middle of your Zoom call has ever made you feel anxious or afraid, you’re not alone, according to a researcher who studies how humans interact with computers.

We’re naturally wired to pay attention to faces, and seeing large ones on a computer screen causes our brain interpret them as being close, which triggers our “fight or flight” reflex, Jeremy Bailenson, head of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.